In the processing of solid wastes, very little can be done in exercising usual industrial process techniques because the "raw" supply is too erratic in volume, components, size, consistency, and content. Attempts to blend and average the supply have included the use of very large chambers worked with overhead cranes in an attempt to mix the stock, live bottom mixers, rotating drums, and shredders. While shredders have achieved a certain level of the desired effectiveness to produce a uniform conveyable product, they are inconsistent, prone to contaminate the surrounding area with dust, odors, and hazardous and toxic chemicals, and experience significant down time when it is necessary to perform maintenance on the cutting edges. It is imperative that the blades remain sharp, otherwise items such as plastic milk bottles escape the shredders and remain in the process stream plugging conveyances and deterring further processing of the solid wastes.
While solid wastes shredders continue to be plagued with these hardships, other equipment in other industries have partially corrected those problems by placing the working blade edges on the outside perimeter of the device with the intent of producing an end product of smaller, manageable, and uniform size. Burkett U.S. Pat. No. 4,151,794, Burk U.S. Pat. No. 4,389,022, and Gonnason U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,673 are representative of such attempts. The Gonnason patent discloses replaceable cutters fixed to the interior outside face of that gypsum ore shredding unit, but does not contemplate a device capable of replacing or sharpening the working pieces without taking the unit out of service. Similarly, the Burkett and Burk patents are deficient in this regard. While both provide for adjustments to peripheral cutting faces, neither can fully service and maintain the units without ultimately taking them out of service.
As a result of the above described shortcomings, the efficient processing of solid wastes continues to languish, preventing or inhibiting the application of traditional industrial processing techniques. Due to the peculiar nature of solid waste as a highly variable feed stock and the absence of an effective means of correcting that problem, solid waste continues to accumulate faster than it can be processed for re-use.